![]() Lee’s initial intention had been to “drive our enemies back to their homes” but that intention had evolved into an aggressive campaign to destroy McClellan’s army in what became known as the Seven Days Battle (25 June–1 July 1862).ĭuring the Seven Days Battle Lee kept the army surging forward in a series of battles (the major ones were Mechanicsville, 26 June Gaines’ Mill, 27 June Savage’s Station, 29 June Glendale or Frayser’s Farm, 30 June and Malvern Hill, 1 July) until General McClellan was driven back a full twenty-five miles, in what McClellan tried to term a strategic withdrawal, but which became known popularly, and more accurately, as “the great skedaddle.” What You Need to Know: He left 25,000 of them to defend Richmond, and threw the rest in an unceasing offensive against McClellan’s invaders. McClellan was waiting for him, and lobbing shells at the Confederate lines. Lee set his men to building trenches, earthworks, and fortifications-so that he could defend the city with fewer men-and shaped his new Army of Northern Virginia to attack. (Johnston himself said as much: “The shot that struck me down is the very best that has been fired for the Southern cause yet.”)Īfter Seven Pines, both sides withdrew. On that day he did the best service he ever did the Confederacy: he managed to get wounded badly enough that Robert E. ![]() He had about 40,000 men to meet the Federals at the Battle of Seven Pines (or Fair Oaks) on. Johnston could see the Federal forces massing before him. The blue-coated infantry could see the spires of the church steeples-and Confederate General Joseph E. He marched them to a point five miles from the city. So McClellan was on his own-or as on his own as he could be with more than 120,000 troops now under his command. He had hoped the Navy would advance with him, but Confederate defenders at Drewry’s Bluff, seven miles from the rebel capital, convinced the Federals that the James River was impassable as it approached the city. When they finally got footsore and withdrew, the Young Napoleon advanced again. Presumably, he could have brushed this force aside, so mighty was his right hand, but the Young Napoleon was, as ever, cautious about the dangerous Johnny Rebs and spent a month in elaborate siege of a Confederate force that marched up and down behind its entrenchments successfully convincing the Yanks that its numbers were legion. An Englishman who saw it said it marked “the stride of a giant.” The giant, however, found his way blocked by fewer than 15,000 Confederates at Yorktown. The landing was an enormous operation-more than 120,000 men were eventually landed-and conducted extremely well. From there he had a march of only seventy-five miles to the Confederate capital, and the Navy could support him along the James River. No, he would employ the Navy to land his troops at Fort Monroe on Virginia’s coastline. He would not slog straight down from Washington to Fredericksburg to Richmond against heavy Confederate resistance. With special attention to the differences in vocabulary among the generations currently living-the sometimes awkward Millennials, the grunge music of Generation X, hippies among the Boomers, and bobbysoxers among the Silents - From Skeddadle to Selfie compiles dozens of words we have come to recognize or use and tells the unheard stories of each in its role of accompanying its generation through the times.McClellan, regarded as a military genius, a young Napoleon, had a plan: he would not be a military primitive. ![]() By sampling from as far back as the American Revolution, Metcalf carefully constructs a comprehensive account of the history and usage of words associated with each generation in the American language. ![]() In this book, Allan Metcalf, author of OK, uses a special framework of defining American generations to show that each generation of those born within a particular 20-year time period can be identified and characterized by words it chooses to use. Those words not only tell us a great deal about the people in those generations, but also highlight the differences between them and other generations.
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